


Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Force

by TheDarkRat



Series: DarkRat's Plot Bunny Basket [9]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, But Also The Force is the Force, Kinda, The Force is Bending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21747556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkRat/pseuds/TheDarkRat
Summary: Anakin has always had an affinity for Air Bending. His mother kept it secret.Obi-Wan flows like water but has kept it dammed up since Qui-Gon refused to teach that style.Qui-Gon thinks he is grounded on the bones of the earth, but he walks on shifting sands.The Sith wait. In darkness and flame.
Series: DarkRat's Plot Bunny Basket [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1500458
Comments: 8
Kudos: 77





	Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Force

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! I missed a couple of Monday updates because real life sucks. Cats got fleas which triggered some anxiety and depression. But I'm slowly climbing out of the hole. Yay! 
> 
> Anyways, this fic. I don't remember writing it. I was pleasantly surprised to find in my folders. 
> 
> It's again, in my bullet point, vaguely poetic style. 
> 
> Also - TAGS! There is Major Character Death. (within canon, but still)

When the Line of Bane rose to power, they did everything they could to kill off Air Benders. There had been a prophecy, of a Jedi who could command the Force and all four Elements - Chosen by the Force - Who's face and name were shrouded in wind and sand. So the Sith, wielders of Darkness and Flame, snuffed out any and all Benders of Air. 

Anakin Skywalker was born during a sandstorm. His mother only allowed her screams due to the equally screaming winds. Slaves must be silent. As Anakin took his first breath and screamed into the night, the sand storm that had raged all day ended. 

Shmi Skywalker hid much her son's abilities. He was precocious and intelligent. He could command the air and wind. She allowed him practice time at night, safely tucked into their quarters, to prevent him from attempting anything during the day - when she could not watch him. By the time he is five, he begins to use other powers. Powers of the mind and Shmi knows - her son is a Force User and an Air Bender. He is in danger and dangerous. But she is a slave. She cannot help him in the manner he needs. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi is born on Stewjon. A small, commercial-port planet. It's no ecumenopolis, but the only habitable places are terraformed. The beings who first visited and claimed the planet were unfamiliar with sand, rock, and chilly air. They wanted soil and grass and flowing water. So they created what they needed. But, Stewjon started its life with wind rolling against high mountainsides - it has never forgotten this.

When Obi-Wan was brought the Temple, he heard the flow of water in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. He reached out with a small, infant hand and brought the water to him. The floating ball of water hovered over his head until someone noticed and then it dropped. Obi-Wan did not cry, he laughed.

Qui-Gon Jinn is an Earth Bender. He has grounded himself to the Here and Now - the Living Force. He is tall, broad, and commands the eye when he strides into a room. He is like a mountain, built upon the bones of the earth, unmoving, unassailable, and prone to mercurial weather changes. He changes his mind at a glacial pace and will not give an inch. For, after all, mountains do not bow to the wind. When circumstances bring Obi-Wan to him as a Padawan, he begrudging takes the boy on, as subtle as a rockslide in his dislike. 

But Obi-Wan is water. Water seeks the smoothest path. He flows and ebbs like the tide. When Qui-Gon refuses to learn Water Bending to teach his new Padawan the discipline he so obviously favours, Obi-Wan changes course. Like a river meeting a boulder. And Obi-Wan learns to bury the water under the earth, secret, safe, and waiting. A wellspring for later. 

Life goes on. Anakin plays in the wind and sand. Obi-Wan buries himself in the ground. Qui-Gon walks on shifting sand. 

When Qui-Gon meets Anakin he knows this young boy is special. He knows it, deep in his mountainous bones. The boy predicts the sandstorm with more than just a desert-dwellers precision. When he makes a small whirlwind of the sand on the floor to clean house, Qui-Gon knows. This boy is the Chosen One. An Air Bender of the desert. He must be trained. He must be safe. 

But there are other forces at work and at play. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon meet a Sith warrior. A Zabrak wielding DarkSide Force and Fire Bending. A combination never seen outside the Sith. A combination thought to be extinct. Shadow and Flame bring down the mountain. But the wellspring bursts through the ground and the Zabrak tumbles down, cut in two. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi is Knighted. Obi-Wan Kenobi is grieving. Obi-Wan Kenobi takes Anakin on as a Padawan learner. 

Anakin is strong in the Force and is a natural Air Bender. There hasn't been recorded Air Benders since Darth Bane. But the histories still exist, if you know where to look. And Obi-Wan does. He teaches himself alongside Anakin. Together they teach each other and master Air. Anakin is a prodigy. Eager to learn skills, but despairing theory. Anakin Skywalker wants to learn Fire Bending. 

Fire Bending is hard. It is dangerous to wield if not careful. It is flashy. It is attention-grabbing. Anakin who grew up a slave in a beyond back-water town on an outer rim planet craves attention. He wants to be noticed, to be seen, to be a somebody. To never again be relegated to the shadows, to never again fear of disappearing. It is a reasonable want after an unreasonable childhood. And Anakin learns too quickly, bores too quickly, needs an outlet for his energy. Obi-Wan consents. 

Once again, Obi-Wan learns for old history, ancient scrolls, and once, on the sly, a Holocron. He teaches Anakin as he teaches himself. Obi-Wan absorbs new knowledge like the earth absorbs the rain. Each drop filtered through layers of soil and rock to deposit into a hidden, underground aquifer. Anakin learns like a desert wind scouring anything in its path to find what is underneath - the sand ripping and twisting and tearing away the flesh to free the bone. 

\-----------

Sheev Palpatine is not a stupid being. He has been biding his time for a very long time. He has gained the Chancellor's seat. He has gained influence and friends, and not a few enemies. But most of all, he has gained a new apprentice. Anakin Skywalker, newly knighted, bender of Air and Fire. He twists words like wisps of smoke. He finds secrets and then keeps them, hoarding them. He knows about Padme, yes he does. How could he not? He was, after all, a Senator from Naboo when she was Queen. Who was it, after all, who taught those young queens? Palpatine had been around for much longer than the standard Senator's term. 

Sheev wants to break Anakin. Wants to bring him down. After all, flames need air to survive. Who better to become a new Master of Flame and Shadow. In the end, it is too easy. Anakin is afraid of and for too many things, and Sheev plays on each and every one of them. Anakin Falls. 

Back when Anakin was still a Padawan and Obi-Wan his teacher, Obi-Wan tried to drill into Anakin's head the danger of Fire Bending. Fire consumes. Fire wants. Fire will use anything and everything it can reach as fuel. You need self-control and strength of will to hold it in check. You need to master yourself before you can master Fire. You cannot control Fire. You can only guide it. Anakin paid lip service to these lessons, he could repeat them in his sleep, he could write them down in any one of the dozen languages he knew. But Anakin did not learn these lessons. 

Fire consumes. Air feeds Fire. Anakin Skywalker was swept away in a tornado of flame, leaving only Darth Vader in its wake. 

Order 66 was not created. The Line of Bane knew how to strip Benders from the world. They had done it to the Air Benders once upon a time. They did not need clones to do their dirty work for them. Sheev smiled as he sent his new warrior out to Mustafar. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi had done more than most for Anakin. But in the end, Anakin made the decisions. Anakin chose to walk the path into Shadow and Obi-Wan would not follow. But he would go to Mustafar. Obi-Wan watched, hidden from sight in the Force, as his former student, friend, brother, son, turned on the Separatists. Obi-Wan steps back into sight, dropping the cloak of the Force. Darth Vader turns to him. 

The Force works mysteriously. It grants powers of the mind, body, and spirit to the lucky few who can perceive it. Not all Force users can Bend. But all Benders are Forcer Users. They have to be. In order to reach the elements, to manipulate, to move, to shape, the Bender has to be in touch with the Force. Even rarer than Bending, are Force Visions. Visions of the past, of the present, or of a possible future granted to a special few. Anakin had been dreaming of a possible future where his secret, pregnant wife dies in childbirth. Had Anakin thought about this with logical eyes, he might not have Fallen. But logic was never Anakin Skywalkers strong suit. He played with Air and Fire, flighty, flirty, and ultimately, faithless. In the split second of Obi-Wan revealing himself, the Force granted him knowledge. Not a vision. But straight knowledge. Something never spoken of, never written down. And in that split second, Obi-Wan knew what he must do.

The fight between Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi would have been something recorded for posterity in every history book. It would have spawned artwork, tapestries and frescos, mosaics and stained glass. It was the stuff of legends. The Force and the Elements used in conjunction were explosive. 

The thing to remember, of course, is that the Prophecy given so very long ago spoke of a Bender shrouded in wind and sand, who would wield all four Elements. It was interpreted to mean an Air Bender, thus the purge. No one stopped to think the mystery Bender was shrouded in wind and sand because they were fighting an Air Bender. Or that the wind and sand were completely natural, non-Bending phenomenons, native to a planet of desert and mountains. The entirety of the Jedi Council knew the Prophecy. Qui-Gon Jinn had been its foremost scholar. When Anakin Skywalker was discovered in the deserts of Tattooine, everyone thought this child was the Chosen One. An Air Bender, the first recorded since the Purge, a child of the desert, born in during a sandstorm. Each tick mark furthering the assumption. When Anakin took to Fire Bending there were a lot of knowing nods, of course, he would take more than one style. He was the Chosen One. When he Mastered Air and was half-way through Fire, everyone knew. Here was the subject to the Prophecy. 

The thing they forgot, of course, was that Obi-Wan Kenobi had been born on Stewjon, a planet of cold mountains and grassy steppes. That Obi-Wan Kenobi was a natural Water Bender. That Obi-Wan had put Water aside to learn Earth from Qui-Gon. That Obi-Wan had vowed not to be his master and gladly welcomed Anakin's natural style, nevermind it was ancient, no longer taught, and he struggled through years of self-study to support his Padawan. That Obi-Wan never stopped supporting his Padawan, and when Anakin took up Fire, so did he. The thing that everyone forgot that Obi-Wan Kenobi had slowly, painstakingly, and mostly silently, mastered all four Elements. Even Obi-Wan forgot the importance of this fact. 

The planet Mustafar is rivers of molten rock, cliffs of black porous stones, and thick, choking air. It heaves with tumultuous energy. It burns with bright red liquid magma. It roars with all the anger of a vengeful god. An important note about lava, it is rock with the properties of liquid. Something Obi-Wan knew intimately. For Obi-Wan was buried water, he was molten rock, he was slicing air, and towering flames. Here, on this planet of extremes, Obi-Wan was in his element. 

The two fought - flame against stone. Lava against wind. It was cataclysmic. But, in the end. Only one victor emerged. Darth Vader had been trapped with a stone prison, only his head and neck visible. He was screaming wordlessly. Rage and hate boiling out of him. He breathed fire and smoke. A dragon of old. It would do him no good. Obi-Wan Kenobi, using the knowledge gifted to him by the Force - using the Force itself, ripped the ability to Bend from Darth Vader's body. 

It was a terrible thing to do. It was terrible knowledge. It was something Obi-Wan would never speak of, would never share. It was concentrated violence and violation. But it would save the galaxy. Obi-Wan watched as Darth Vader took his last breath. The Flame and Shadow had consumed too much of him. Without his bending, he could not exist. 

On the planet Mustafar, away from any settlement, there is a tomb. It is shiny, black obsidian. It holds the cremated remains of a man who could have been good but wanted to be great. There is no name written on this grave. Only a pictogram of binary suns. 

Obi-Wan is heartbroken. But he must continue. Darth Vader was only the symptom. He knows there is another, greater threat. 

\-----------

Sheev Palpatine had styled himself, Emperor. He wished to lord over the galaxy with an iron fist. He wielded the Dark Side and Fire. He could defeat all comers. 

Except. 

Except he felt his newest apprentice die. Out on Mustafar, on a milk-run mission. Darth Vader was dead. 

So he called a hearing. He called all the Jedi to the Senate building for an inquiry. One of their own was dead. Someone must know something. In the stands, hundreds of Jedi, beings from all over the galaxy sat and watched. A lone figure entered the speaking platform below. 

Emperor Palpatine watched as Obi-Wan Kenobi stood before him. He took in the dirty, burnt, and scuffed appearance. He took in the broken heart worn so openly on his sleeve. He took in the flat look in his eyes. Here was the murderer of his apprentice. 

Before Palpatine could speak, Obi-Wan took the initiative. Here was The Negotiator. Here was the High General of the Grand Army of the Republic. Here was the war hero, straight out of the holonet. Obi-Wan used every skill he had, used every scrap of knowledge he had gleaned and supposed and now had proof for. Obi-Wan spoke of secrets, of treason, of a dark empire built on death, lies, and shadows. He spoke of the slowly closing fist of tyranny on the free systems of the galaxy, of the lost rights, of the hurting peoples, of the plight of slaves. Before hundreds of Jedi and the Galatic Senate, Obi-Wan Kenobi laid out each of Sheev Palpatine's crimes - one after the other, each one linking to the last and the next, big and small, genocide to money laundering, spying and sedition, murder and kidnapping. He spoke on and on, the Senate spellbound and quiet. Even Palpatine could not interrupt. When he finished. Obi-Wan pointed directly at the Emporer and named him the perpetrator of all those crimes. 

There was a wave of noise, almost a buzzing. And then a bolt of lightning arched out the Emperor's hand towards Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan did not move, he redirected the bolt. With a scream of rage, the Emperor flew at the Jedi. 

Lightning and fire coursed through the fight. Obi-Wan drawing water from open glasses and pitchers across the room used it as a whip and shield. Paving stones rumbled beneath them and flew to his aid. Each time the Emperor jumped at him, Obi-Wan rebuffed him with strong gusts of air. And then, Obi-Wan saw an opening, and he cast a bolt of lightning. 

It struck. And the Emperor shuttered still. Then fell to the floor. His heart had burst. A small trickle of blood seeped out of his open mouth. 

Obi-Wan stood, breathing heavy, but steadily. He watched as his fellow Jedi came back to awareness. As they realized what had just happened. What Obi-Wan had just done. And how he had done it. 

Mace Windu, caught his eye and nodded. It was all he needed. Obi-Wan left the Senate building. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi was never seen again. 

A Ben Kenobi, however, was noted as being an Uncle to Senator Amidala's twins. Watching and teaching them while their mother fixed the Senate and served the Galaxy. 


End file.
